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Friday, August 03, 2007

Biblicizing Transformers

Biblicizing movies is my custom. I'm beginning to realize it's less piety than the an attempt to avoid boredom. Fooled by good reviews, I found myself watching Transformers. I concede some good parts, but being bored, I biblicized. Using the fallen angels bit on this film would work, but it's too easy. Instead my one Bible verse review reads: "Get behind me Satan."

Consider that (spoiler alert) towards the end of the movie Optimus Prime says to the teenage hero, "If I can't kill Megatron, I will sacrifice myself," which Optimus solicits the boy's help to do. Then Optimus says something which is inexplicable apart from this millinerd-patented interpretation. He says to the boy emphatically, "Get behind me." Why not, "I'll protect you" or "Watch out." No, it was "Get behind me."

Like Peter, the kid doesn't listen. How is this not a reference to Matthew 16? I'm getting tired in my old age of films with teenagers who can do no wrong and who save the world. It was no different with actor Shiah LaBeouf in "Disturbia" which I was forced to see on a plane. Teenagers can do wrong. In Transformers, the kid's Petrine Messianic triumphalism kept Optimus Prime from becoming a Christ-figure who could sacrifice himself to save the world.

"The breezy style is often the work of an egocentric, the person who imagines that everything that comes to mind is of general interest and that uninhibited prose creates high spirits and carries the day."
-Strunk & White (p. 73)